“She was a pretty woman,” he said, “with six children and another on the way. She was always saying, ‘I’m going to pay you soon, when my husband gets a second job.’ I believed her. What a fool I was! I thought I was doing a good thing, but I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve been had!”

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present.

He was a little taller than my waist and very dark skinned. He was also thin as a bone. I noticed that his little arm was only about as big around as my thumb. My heart went out to him and I gave him another 10 rupees which he gladly accepted with a smile then caught my eye and motioned for me to look at his feet. I was shocked...

At the request of Mr. John Wentworth, Editor, and Proprietor of the “Chicago Democrat,” I have written the following sketch of the rise, progress, persecution, and faith of the Latter-day Saints, of which I have the honor, under God, of being the founder. … all that I shall ask at his hands is that he publish the account entire, ungarnished, and without misrepresentation.

I remember the churchman saying, in a very solemn and impressive tone, that the very influence the boy carried was the danger they feared for the coming generation, that not only the young men, but all who came in contact with him, would follow him, and he must be put down.

May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, my brother attorney on the other side has charged me with connection with Joseph Smith and the golden Bible. The responsibility has been placed upon me, and I cannot escape reply.

William E. McLellin wanted to know where Heber C. Kimball was. Someone pointed me out to him as I was sitting on the ground. He came up to me and said: “Brother Heber, what do you think of the fallen prophet now? Has he not led you blindfolded long enough?

If any of you plan to remember anything that I am going to say to you tonight, I would just like to have you write in your notebook that—and I am sure of this—the one business of life is to succeed. I am absolutely certain in my own mind that God did not go to all the trouble of creating this beautiful earth, with all of its utilities and beauties and opportunities, without something very important in mind for those he expected to live here upon it. And I am even more sure that he did not create us in his own image and endow us with these potentially magnificent brains, miraculous personalities, and fantastic physical bodies and then expect us to waste our lives in failure.

Mark Twain once joked that if Joseph Smith had left out the many instances of “and it came to pass” from the Book of Mormon, the book would have been only a pamphlet. There are, however, some very good reasons behind the usage of the phrase—reasons that further attest the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.